News
Vintage Boat Raffle
The Rotary Club of Eagle River will be hosting a raffle beginning October 15th for a vintage Carver wood speed boat.
The drawing will take place on Monday, December 7th at 12:30 pm via livestream on our Facebook page.
The 1956 Carver Cadet wood speed boat comes complete with an outboard Evinrude engine and trailer. It was donated to the Club by the Louise Waterman Bailey Estate. Mrs. Bailey was a local resident on Catfish Lake for the past 40 years. Her family owned the first private residence on the Everett Peninsula when they built a home there in 1904.
The boat will be on display in the showroom at Parsons of Eagle River.
Only 300 raffle tickets are being sold at $10 each. Tickets may be purchased at: Anderson Insurance, Grandma’s Toy Box, Eagle Hobby & Craft, Coldwell Banker Mulleady Realtors, and Parsons of Eagle River.
Funds raised by the raffle will be used to support projects right here in the Northwoods community. The Rotary Club of Eagle River has contributed to the Demmer and Walter E. Olson Libraries, the Wounded Warrior Project, the Great Headwaters Trail, ERRA Dome, Three Lakes Center for the Arts, area food pantries and many other worthy projects.
Berganthal Challenge 2020
Hello Rotarians!
It’s that time of year – we’re preparing for the annual Berganthal Challenge.
For our new members, this annual giving campaign honors Rotary Board Member Bob Berganthal, and all funds contributed by Club Members are donated to the three area food pantries.
View our contribution form. Please give what you can, and let me know if you have any questions.
We’re asking that all donations be sent by December 1st so that we can prepare our contributions to the three food pantries.
Thank you for your generosity and continued support of our community.
Kim Swisher, Treasurer
Great Headwaters Trail Donation
The Eagle River Rotary Club and Rotary District 6220 donated $5,198 for the completion of the Conover-Phelps Trail as part of the trail’s Homestretch Campaign.
The donation was presented by club Treasurer Kim Swisher to Great Headwaters Trails (GHT) Executive Director Jeff Currie.
We’re Returning to In-Person Meetings
Good Morning Rotarians 
We are returning to our in-person meetings today at Chef Rene’s at the Eagle River Inn & Resort.
COVID safety measures will be implemented, and lunch will be served by restaurant staff.
A Zoom meeting option is also available. For Zoom information, contact Joe Laux.
Summer Events
The Club Board met on Wednesday, May 29th, to talk about summer events, resumption of Club meetings, and make some decisions about what our summer looks like. Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey I sent out a couple weeks ago. Your input was greatly appreciated.
With the health and well being of our members and patrons in mind, and to preserve the reputation of the club as being mindful of the safety of others, the unanimous consensus of the Board is to cancel our involvement in, and hosting of, any events this summer. This means the 2020 Wine & Cheese and the Antique Show and Sale have been cancelled. It was a tough decision, but we look forward to resuming our event schedule in 2021.
Additionally, our regularly scheduled in-person Club meetings will not resume until July 20th at the earliest. Obviously the Board will continue monitoring the situation pertaining to COVID-19, and will reassess as we get closer to that date. Until such a time as we can meet in person again, our regularly scheduled Monday Zoom meetings will continue at noon.
The decisions were difficult, but necessary, and I personally feel a combination of sadness and relief that we’ve postponed our events until 2021. Let’s hope that the pandemic comes to a quick end, and we can all get back to life as we once knew and enjoyed it. That said, because we will want to preserve the resources we have available to us, we will be unlikely to fund many, if any, projects in the near future so we can be prepared to resume our philanthropy and events next year.
Thank you for your support and for being an important part of a community-based service organization that has done SO much good in our area. This, too, shall pass…
Kindest regards,
Robin Ginner, President
FORK Donation
Robin Ginner, President, presents Perry Pokrandt a donation for Feed Our Rural Kids (FORK).
Our club continues to meet on Mondays (virtually) and continues our commitment to our community 💙
From FORK –
Rotary Club of Eagle River Wisconsin stands with FORK in our efforts to provide nutritional support to kids in the Northland Pines School District.
Robin Ginner, ER Rotary President, proudly presents a donation to Perry Pokrandt – FORK President.
Thank you Rotarians for providing nearly 3,000 meals to feed our rural kids. It is greatly appreciated!
Zoom Meetings
Grab your grilled cheese sandwich from the kitchen and log on to our VIRTUAL Rotary Club Lunch meeting next Monday, April 13th, at Noon!
Next Monday, we are hosting an online meeting of our club at Noon! We’ll gather using the Zoom online meeting platform (they’ve instituted new security measures, so we’ll be just fine!).
The Board met online today, and we thought it would be nice to see everyone’s smiling faces on our computer screens, give you an update on what’s happening (we’re still giving and being supportive in the community, even during the shutdown!), and hopefully a timeline for when we plan to be back at Chef Rene’s at the Inn for our regular Monday meetings.
Here is the connection/dial-in information. You can either join us “in person” on your computer, or call in from your phone. We hope to see everyone on April 13th at Noon!
Join Zoom Meeting Online
https://zoom.us/j/271582737…
Meeting ID: 271 582 737
Password: 600190
Dial In: +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)
Meeting ID: 271 582 737
Password: 600190
Kindest regards,
Robin Ginner
A Message from Our President
A message from Robin Ginner, our President –
Given the statewide shutdown through April 24th (and likely to be longer), at this time we are extended our meeting suspension until at least May 4th. The Rotary Club Board will meet for a virtual meeting on Monday to talk about the situation, as well as our upcoming events, and any updates will be sent to you via email next week.
I hope everyone is staying healthy and sane during the shutdown, and that your businesses are not suffering too badly. I hope we will be back to normal before we know it, and can all look back at this with a shake of the head and a shrug of the shoulders.
I miss you all and look forward to seeing you soon.
Kindest regards,
Robin Ginner
In-Person Meetings Postponed
Hello Fellow Rotarians.
Our club has made the decision to postpone meeting in person until at least Monday, April 6th.
We’ll keep you updated here and thru emails.
From Our Rotary International President:
March 14, 2020
Dear fellow Rotary members and friends,
The COVID-19 coronavirus is affecting every aspect of our lives in real time, and this puts Rotary members in an unfamiliar place.
As #PeopleofAction, we are most comfortable when we are fully engaged in the world – moving freely, meeting openly, and offering helping hands. These are very difficult times for people who, like us, are at our best when we are learning, growing, and serving—together.
We are also leaders in our communities, and these times call for leadership. In many ways, this also is our time. We have proven abilities to reach out and collaborate to offer immediate help to people in need at a rapid pace. These are precisely the skills needed all over the world today. The global effort against COVID-19 depends on actions taken in every country. Rotary has the unique ability to help improve those efforts in every community and every country.
Using all the technology we have at our disposal, we as Rotarians can continue to reach out and collaborate on big projects with Rotary clubs, Rotaractors, and Interactors. There are a number of examples where Rotary clubs are helping health authorities communicate best practices or provide needed equipment or support that have been shared with our leaders around the world.
As Rotary’s president and president-elect, we have been thinking of these issues very seriously in regard to upcoming Rotary events. As you may be aware, we have made the difficult decision to cancel two Rotary Presidential Conferences honoring our relationship with the United Nations – one in Paris, another in Rome. In the near term, we recommend that Rotary districts and clubs cancel or postpone meetings or events following the advice of national and local health officials.
We know that clubs and districts are seizing the opportunity to become leaders in their communities and are making better use of technology in this time of need. For example, a Rotary e-club in Italy held a live online session about COVID-19 awareness, a Taiwan club worked with companies and a pharmacy association to donate 1,600 bottles of hand sanitizer to the city of Ji-Long, and Rotary clubs in Sri Lanka helped upgrade software and hardware for the health promotion bureau to assist its social messaging.
We cannot know quite yet what path this virus will take. We know we can play a role to help “flatten the curve,” reducing the number of cases in the short term to allow our health systems to address this issue. If the collective global effort helps bring the situation under control, then we hope to re-embrace our core values at the 2020 Rotary Convention in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Our time together will have greater meaning and purpose than ever.
Please know that we are taking a close, continuing look at our plans for the convention in June to make sure all attendees’ safety will be protected. We are following the lead of the world’s most trusted sources, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), for their guidance. We want you to be able to make decisions about what is best for you and your families in terms of attending this year’s event.
In the meantime, this is an opportunity for us to demonstrate that Rotary Connects the World in innovative ways. We should be closely following the advice of the WHO and local health authorities. Again, this includes canceling Rotary club events and meetings in the short term to reduce unnecessary interactions that could cause infections. We can put a greater emphasis on the work we do in our communities by helping our less fortunate neighbors cope with the effects of isolation and fear, or by supporting our health authorities to address this situation.
We are dealing with this situation in real time. Please visit our COVID-19 response page at http://on.rotary.org/covid-19 for ongoing updates.
This is an unprecedented challenge for nearly all of us. But it is also an opportunity for Rotary members to find new, meaningful ways to lead individuals and communities to connect and do good in the world.
We have never been prouder to be part of an organization that does so much to protect and strengthen our communities, at home and across the globe.
Kindest regards,
Mark Daniel Maloney
2019-2020, President, Rotary International
Holger Knaack
2020-21, President, Rotary International
January 2020
It’s not uncommon for ordinary Rotarians to find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. No matter what our profession is, we all contribute mightily to the world and our local communities when we conduct our work with integrity. We always adhere to The Four Way Test, writes RI President Mark Maloney.
People from all over the world have multiple reasons for joining Rotary. Many believe it is a great way to benefit their career. It helps build relationships and demonstrates to potential clients and associates that we are serious when it comes to living up to high values and standards.
In an effort to reach younger new members, we want to see a Rotary that does not ask members to choose between being a good Rotarian and being a good parent, business owner, manager or employee. When we ask busy young people to join us, we should not be asking them to give up their time and freedom, Maloney said. We should be rewarding them with an experience that makes everything they already do even more inspiring.
As members of Rotary, together we learn. Education fuels innovation and progress. We encourage lifelong learning: exchanging ideas and inspiring generations of problem solvers. We learn together to explore what’s possible—that’s what people of action do.
If you want to know more about Rotary, and how Rotary can be of value to you in 2020, send me your name and number at bjaym3@gmail.com.